Site Ed. Note: Texas pols? Tinhorn candidates? The Falklands? Why, ancient history…

It was on this date, incidentally, that Cash placed the last of the long overdue manuscript of The Mind of the South in the post box to the Knopfs. It is somewhat perplexing that Cash finished the book in this month of all months when the three-week vacation of editor J. E. Dowd gave Cash all editorial duties on the News. But it would seem from close examination of his career that he usually worked more efficiently the more he had to do--so perhaps not so perplexing really.

Texas Candidates and the New American Politics

Of five candidates for Governor in Texas, three are: W. Lee (Pass the Biscuits, Pappy) O'Daniel, the present Governor; Ms. Ferguson, who once got herself elected Governor when her husband was heaved out of the job; and Arlon B. (Cyclone) Davis.

The names are a remarkable commentary on American politics in our time. American politics has always been picturesque and extravagant of course. As long ago as "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too" something of the same familiarity which has distinguished the Texas campaign was on display in the country. But in those days, the candidates at least had some claim to dignity and capacity under their motley.

But does anybody suppose, in view of the record, that Ms. Ferguson or Pass the Biscuits, Pappy, have any fitness for the duties of a Governor of the state which is as big as France once was? And is it likely that a man who styles himself Cyclone and campaigns, like Pappy, with hillbilly music, is anything in fact but a braying little whirlwind?

What underlies the appalling tendency of Americans--and it is not merely confined to Texas--to elect such unmitigated clowns as these to the highest offices, we don't know. Maybe it is a symptom of the general decay of American life. Maybe the standards of the people have got so cheap that hillbilly music is actually the measure of values for a lot of them. Maybe it represents a hatred of all merit, the desire to level everything out to the status of the worst.

Or maybe it simply represents complete disillusionment with politicians, a conviction that they are all like, that none of them ever delivers what he promises, and that one might as well vote for a good show, at least.

As we say, we don't know. Figured it out for yourself.

Interest to Us Lies in Fact They Command Horn

The obvious eagerness of the Argentine to grab the Falklands without bothering to consider other American interests in these islands fits beautifully with the Nazi purpose, regardless of whether it was directly inspired by the Nazis or not. Certainly, it has been egged on by them.

The Argentine has all long been considered by the Nazis to be their best ultimate bet for getting a foothold in Latin-America. It is farthest removed geographically from the United States of all the Latin countries. And it is farthest removed economically. We buy little from the Argentine, sell it little. And as one of the ABC powers, it has a strongly developed dislike for the Colossus of the North dating from the Big Stick policy of Theodore Roosevelt and the dollar diplomacy of later Republican Administrations. Brazil and Chile, the other ABC powers, have that dislike also, but those have closer economic ties with the United States than the Argentine. Moreover, the Argentine already has a large German population.

Finally, the Argentine fancies itself as an important nation more completely than the other Latin countries and has long nursed a jealousy of the United States--harbored a dream of becoming its rival in this hemisphere.

It is to all this that the Nazis address themselves.

Many people, of course, think it doesn't particularly matter to us if the Nazis do establish themselves in the Argentine. But it is certain that, once established there, they would have a far better chance of sweeping the whole of Latin-America up to and including the nations which surround the Panama Canal, as well as our back door neighbor, Mexico.

And in any case, it is clear that control of the Falklands by a Nazified Argentine or an Argentine in danger of being Nazified could not be tolerated by the United States.

The Argentine's claims to these islands is purely geographic. It has never owned them and has no historical claim to them save that they once belonged to Spain from which England got them in 1771. So far as the islands themselves are concerned, they are nearly valueless. They contain only about 2,000 people, who live by a little sheep raising. It is not likely that either England or the United States would object to the Argentine having the government of them, save for Port William.

Port William is another [remainder of paragraph not on microfilm].

Nazis Grow Bolder To Wreck Havana

The Nazis grow daily bolder in their schemes in America.

From Berlin it is an [remainder of paragraph and ensuing two paragraphs and first part of third cut away half way across column].

And it is also an invitation to Brazil, another country now close to Nazism, to grab the Dutch possessions, a prize rich in oil, again without consulting the United States.

Laval Gang Prepares To Play A Doubly Infamous Game

The snide servility of the so-called Petain Government of France is fully revealed in the news that former Premiere Daladier is in "detention" at Marseilles and that there is to be "investigation" and "punishment" of "those responsible for France's entry into the conflict and her defeat."

What lies behind this is the Nazi determination to escape the guilt of the German crime and have the fiction officially set up that England was responsible for the war.

The men in France who are actually guilty of treason to France, the men who sold France out and insured her defeat, are above all Pierre Laval and Pierre Entienne Flandin. The one laid the foundation for all that has happened since by snuggling up to Mussolini in 1931 and winking at his Ethiopian adventure later on. The other, as premiere in 1936, sat quietly by and allowed the Germans to restore conscription and remilitarize the Rhineland in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles--because that course meant money in his own pocket. Laval is now ostensibly vice-premiere of France, actually the man in charge of the Government. Flandin is the great power behind the throne.

These men who betrayed France in the first place now propose to toady to their master in Berlin and at the same time to direct attention away from their own crimes by laying the blame on Daladier, Gamelin and Co., who only played the game which had been forced upon them. It is one of the most infamous episodes in history, but it is not remarkable. Traitors are usually capable of any crime in the calendar.